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SolarTech Ltd. sent us this infographic.

There are some good examples of diagrams (like the house with the 45-degree label and the more detailed house below) helping to show the story instead of just describing it with words. The “What are the benefits?” section at the end also does a great job of leading with imagery (icons for each benefit) and keeping text concise.

Something I would note here is that this infographic jumps between many different styles of illustration. To create a cohesive look, it’s best to choose just one, but this design uses 3D, flat design, silhouettes, and more all in one infographic. This makes it a bit jarring for the viewer and could lead them to focus on the differences in appearance rather than what the illustrations are actually depicting.

Be sure to be consistent when formatting your headers! Some of these are in title casing and some in sentence casing, but it’s best if they all use the same method.

Lastly, a concluding statement helps to wrap things up and give viewers a takeaway. These can be a call-to-action to the company’s website, a question to make them think/generate comments on a blog or social post, or a statement making a conclusion about the information just shared.

In all I’d give this infographic a B- since it is visually themed, informative, and fairly concise, but could use a unified aesthetic, some proofreading, and a conclusion.

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Polygon submitted this infographic to us!

This design does a wonderful job of picking smart icons that help describe the subject of the accompanying text.

A small thing to note: be consistent in copy formatting under each subheader! For example, the Benefits section starts with “Prevents” but then jumps to “Keep” and “Save” instead of “Keeps” and “Saves”.

I do like the unified aesthetic throughout; the consistent icon style, font choices, color palette, and background make for a clean infographic that is visually appealing but not distracting.

The case study is also a smart way to end the infographic; it shows how the principles described early on were really put to the test in an actual building.

In all I’d give this infographic a B+ since it does a great job of employing visuals along with brief bits of text to tell a complete story.

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AAA Heating and Cooling submitted this infographic to us.

The design makes effective use of data visualization to help tell its story. In the first instance, we can see immediately that most households with older ACs have units that are 10-14 years old, but also that it’s more common to have a unit that’s 20+ years old than one that’s 15-19 years old. The bar graph tells this story quickly and clearly so that the viewer doesn’t need to spend a lot of time interpreting what’s being said.

I would like to see the section headers a bit more prominent; as is they seem to use the same font size as the body copy, so it’s only the blue bars that can really tip you off to notice that that text is a header.

I also like the final section, which offers tips to save on your AC bills by showing a room in the house and pointing out each tip as it relates to different spots in a room. This is a great tool for really bringing information into context and making it more accessible.

In all I’d give this infographic a B; it’s quick to get through and stays on topic throughout!

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WasteXpress passed us this infographic!

It’s helpful to get a rundown of how the various types of paint materials differ, and there’s a lot of data visualization attempts made here. However, there are a few problems worth pointing out to help improve the infographic.

None of the stats really get a chance to shine, since they are mostly all given the same typography weight and amount of space. Also, in “Health Hazards of Paint” two stats have triangular bullets next to the numbers, but there’s no clear reason for those bullets. If its meant for emphasis, typography or some sort of break might have been a better way of calling attention to the stats — as it stands, it looks more like a mistake.

Additionally, the data viz would benefit from labels. We see that there are 150 paint chemicals linked to cancer, but then we have just 15 beakers. A key showing “[beaker] = 10 chemicals” would help clarify why that number of beakers is there without the viewer needing to count to find patterns, and the same goes for the 300 chemicals that are known toxins.

There are also a few proofing mistakes, like inconsistency in use of Oxford commas.

In all I’d give this infographic a C, as it could use more visual hierarchy and clarity — but it’s on the right track as far as working to communicate visually rather than verbally.

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This infographic comes to us from Polygon.

It’s very informative about how much construction is planned for the country in upcoming years and the risks in undergoing construction without a moisture-control plan.

I like the use of icons in the first section, but I think data visualization would actually be a strong replacement or addition to those icons. It would be faster to see the growth rate for each year if there were a visual comparison. It’s also unclear why the growth rates are in parentheses; it seems that it would be cleaner to remove them.

The icons make more sense under “Where Other Methods Fall Short…” since there is no numerical data to display for those.

I love the concept of the structure in “Wet Work: What Harm Can a Little Dampness Do?” but I’d like to see the building illustrated in a bit more detail — mainly because having a line drawing of a building juxtaposed with several other lines running between the callouts and the building is distracting to the eye and makes it a bit harder to follow at first glance. This could also be remedied by making the scenes within each circle a different color or highlight.

In all I’d give this infographic a B-. It’s a good design and tells its story quickly, but there are some details that would help improve the way it tells that story.

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This infographic was submitted to us by AAA Heating & Cooling.

It turns out that a poorly maintained air conditioning unit can really compromise efficiency, increasing the costs necessary to cool your home. This infographic shows the results of poor maintenance and the impact it can make by putting in the effort. It does a pretty good job of utilizing a combination of data visualization and icons. While there aren’t any huge text chunks, there are a few places where the text could be reduced further to streamline the design — it’s not critical to use full sentence on data points if the icon or data viz is doing its job. One way to break up text further is to use bullet points instead of putting multiple thoughts together in one chunk.

I like that each section is divided by a bold orange section header that spans the width of the infographic. Clear section breaks are perfect for informing the viewer that a new idea will be introduced.

In all I’d give this infographic a B. It’s clear and concise, but could benefit from a bit of text trimming and redistribution in places to bring the focus back to the visuals.

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This infographic was submitted to us by Sinotech.

It starts with a good overview of the history of brushless DC motors and the breakdown of their expenses. However, it seems that the background, which doesn’t specifically focus on HVAC, is about half of the infographic — since that’s such a significant portion, a title change might help reflect that. Perhaps something like “All about BLDC Motors and Their Contributions to HVAC Advancements”?

In the Benefits section, we see a great example of using icons relevant to the text callouts. The BLDC motor illustration also helps provide some context to viewers who aren’t familiar with the inner workings — in fact, an illustration like that might be useful at the start of the infographic and/or in the background section to provide some additional context.

I like the use of a bit of data visualization but would love to see some more, since there are so many great numbers! Pie charts, bar graphs, line graphs, and quantagrams are all great data visualization options to help your viewers SEE your numbers instead of just reading them.

In all I’d give this infographic a B — a bit more data viz and either a revised title or more title-focused content would improve this a bit.

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This infographic was submitted to us by WasteXpress.

The graphic follows a journey from the early ’70s to present-day Washington State laws, going on to explain how cannabis can impact the environment as well as certain people.

The color scheme of the graphic certainly makes sense, and the Seattle skyline at the top of the infographic helps establish the setting. The “problem/solution” setup for the conclusion is a great way to show progress and available options for the newly-legal crop.

A quick mention of edits: initiatives don’t need a hyphen when “Initiative” is spelled out. For instance, “Initiative-502″ should just be “Initiative 502,” but if it were abbreviated to “I-502″ the hyphen would be correct.

The bottom portion of the infographic does a good job of using relevant icons to accompany the text, and I’d love to see a bit more of that at the top. Any time the emphasis can be taken away from the text and placed on icons or data visualizations working as visual aides, do it!

In all I’d give this infographic a B+. A bit of proofing and a bit more emphasis on visuals could improve viewer engagement!

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This infographic was submitted to us by Verizon Networkfleet.

This is a good example of a branded infographic with a clear sense of corporate preferences. While this IG sticks to Verizon colors and probably fonts as well, it doesn’t look forced. The balance of typography and data visualization helps tell the story succinctly.

Data visualization could be used a bit more throughout the design, though, to take the focus even further off of the text. The MPG rates could be shown in a bar graph to really emphasize the differences between each — and the stats below (2 million barrel reduction in oil dependence, which is 50% of our current OPEC imports) could also be visualized for greater impact. The same goes for the gas savings across 1 year, 5 years, and 10 years — show that money with quantagrams and viewers will have an even better sense of how much they could save.

One design suggestion I have would be to emphasize the concluding statement as a separate component. As it stands, it looks like a conclusion to just the “Impacts the Air” section, not a conclusion for the entire infographic. A separate color bar and larger text could resolve this.

In all I’d give this infographic a B+ — clear and concise content, and a great way to incorporate branding without going overboard, still maintaining the essentials of infographic design.

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This infographic was submitted to us by Polygon Group US.

I like the color coding of the various methods of recovery offered by the service. The graphic also provides some good information about how costly disasters can be, providing incentive for the viewer to protect their business.

The design could use a bit more of a hierarchy — clearer distinctions between sections and a focus on the vertical layout would help to guide the viewer’s eye. This is done best in the final two sections, which is incidentally where the data visualization lives! I’d love to see the rest of the infographic organized in this fashion, so the viewer has no hesitation about what to look at next. The services that the company offers are just sort of smooshed in on the side of infographic, giving the stats about natural disaster damage a scattered appearance.

An additional opportunity for data visualization would be to use the US map as a heat map. For example, it could make Missouri (with the costliest tornado) the darkest state of the five, and Oklahoma (with the fifth most costly tornado) the lightest of the five. The unmentioned states could be gray to show that they’re not part of the comparison.

In all I’d give this infographic a B. It could benefit from improved organization with visible section breaks, but overall tells its story efficiently without too much fluff.